Sankranti arrives with the smell of fresh harvest and warm kitchens.
Across India, every region cooks something special during this time, especially in rural homes where traditions stay closest to the soil. Many of these festive foods are slowly fading because they take time, skill and ingredients that younger generations rarely work with today.
Here are five such recipes and the states that still hold them close.
Ariselu - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Ariselu is a classic Sankranti sweet made from rice flour and jaggery. The rice is soaked, dried and ground into a fine flour. Jaggery is melted until it reaches a soft syrup stage and mixed with the flour, sesame seeds and a little ghee. Small discs are shaped and fried until they get a soft and chewy texture with a golden crust.
In rural households, ariselu was once a must-have during Sankranti and weddings. Families would gather to grind the rice and stir the hot jaggery syrup, a process that needs patience. Today many homes buy ready-made versions, but the traditional taste still lives in villages.
Poornam Boorelu (Poornalu) - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana
Poornam boorelu are small, deep-fried dumplings filled with sweetened chana dal. The dal is cooked, mashed and mixed with jaggery and cardamom. This mixture is shaped into balls and dipped in a thin rice and urad batter before frying. These dumplings were once a festive essential, carried to temples and shared with neighbors. The recipe takes time, especially the soaking, grinding and shaping steps, which is why fewer homes make it from scratch now.
Ellu Bella - Karnataka
Ellu Bella is a simple but meaningful Sankranti mix. It includes roasted sesame seeds, peanuts, fried gram, dried coconut pieces and tiny jaggery chunks. In Karnataka, families prepare small packets and exchange them with the greeting “Ellu bella thindu, olle maathadi,” which asks people to speak kindly and stay warm-hearted.
This mixture seems easy, but the traditional method requires careful roasting and hand-cutting of ingredients. With ready-made packets available in stores, the old process of family preparation is slowly disappearing.
Til Pitha - Assam
Til pitha is a delicate Assamese snack prepared during Bihu and Sankranti. It is made from a thin layer of sticky rice dough rolled on a hot pan and filled with roasted sesame and jaggery. The recipe depends on local sticky rice varieties like bora saul, which give the pitha its texture.
Earlier, women in villages would make piles of til pitha together, often late into the night. It was both a food tradition and a social moment. As lifestyles change and hand-pounded rice becomes rare, this recipe is losing its place.
Tilgul and Til Poli - Maharashtra
Sankranti in Maharashtra is incomplete without sesame and jaggery sweets. Tilgul laddus are made by lightly roasting sesame and binding them with molten jaggery. Til poli is a flatbread filled with a sesame-jaggery mixture and rolled carefully so it does not tear. Families share these sweets along with the phrase “Tilgul ghya, god god bola,” which encourages people to speak sweetly in the new season.
Though these sweets are still widely eaten, homemade versions are less common because many prefer store-bought laddus or ready-made poli mixes.
Why these festive foods are fading
Most of these recipes require slow cooking, soaking, hand-grinding or shaping by hand. Modern life leaves little time for such detailed work. Younger people move to cities where ingredients, equipment and community traditions are different. Packaged sweets take over, pushing traditional Sankranti foods to the margins. When these recipes fade, we lose more than taste. We lose stories, skills and seasonal wisdom that lived in rural kitchens.
Recording these dishes keeps them alive. Writing down recipes, filming elders while they cook, teaching them in community workshops and celebrating them in local festivals can help preserve these traditions.
Sankranti is a harvest festival, and these foods connect us directly to the earth. Keeping them alive is a way of honoring that bond..
